“Seth material” search engine (Jane Roberts)

(12:27 A.M. Jane paused. She said she could continue, but we decided to end her dictation here, if somewhat regretfully. I hadn’t suggested that Seth come through, so we could see what she’d produce otherwise. “Well,” she commented, “I gave the material while I was in an altered state of consciousness, but I don’t know where it came from. It seems Seth-like, but also really strange. It’s like the stuff I got the other day. Maybe I’m opening up now so that I can get part of the information this way, as well as through Seth. An odd experience …”

(Portions of the article in yesterday’s newspaper, I should add, dealt with the recent discoveries of skeletal fragments in East Africa that indicate the coexistence of several varieties of ancient man and preman; the latter being creatures who looked rather human but whose brains, it is believed, remained apelike. This part of the article is approximately in line with the material Jane came through with some hours later. Her material, however, wasn’t influenced by the news story, for just about a year ago Seth-Jane delivered a session for Personal Reality on the mixing of animal and man: the 648th for March 14, 1973, in Chapter 12. I’d say that this evening Jane elaborated upon that session — especially upon the impressions she gave then during the 11:30 break, on “animal doctors … a bridge between animals and human beings.” But then, for some years Seth has been reiterating that even in our terms there is no well-defined evolutionary path leading from our ancient state to our present one.)

(Yesterday, in the magazine section of a leading metropolitan newspaper, Jane and I read a long article on the evolution of ancient man — “ancient” here meaning “true man” at least 2.5 million to 3 million years old. Aside from the question of whether “evolution” in ordinary linear terms has been scientifically proven [concerning which point Jane and I have many reservations], we were drawn to the article because we thought its “factual” information might eventually supplement some of Seth’s material for “Unknown” Reality. Both of us ended up more incensed than informed, however; it seemed to us that even on its own terms the piece contained many unjustified conclusions that were based on very flimsy evidence — and assumptions — at best.

(While watching television last night we periodically discussed the trite thinking embodied in the article. Then, as we made ready to retire, Jane announced that she was “getting” information on the subject of ancient man — but not necessarily from Seth. She asked me if I wanted her to continue doing so. We were both tired, but I wondered if this could turn out to be an episode like the one she’d experienced before the last session, when she dictated material on the various neurological actions, or speeds, that she sensed. [See Appendix 5] Tonight’s opportunity, concerning a subject of such interest to us, implied something too good to pass by without investigation. I found a pen and some paper in Jane’s desk. We sat down at 12:10 A.M.

No sooner did I sit down than such a rich vein of material opened that I could hardly write fast enough to get it all down; and it began where my earlier ideas had ended off. I was being given many of the subject headings for — Seth’s next book, even as I was writing the Introduction for this one! Behind each heading or subject, I sensed realms of information available to Seth, but not (in usual terms) to me. Yet there had been an earlier moment just before the onrush of material when I sensed an odd psychological threshold, a certain accelerated state, that in this case at least signaled the intersection of Seth’s thoughts and mine. Then there was a brief point of psychological rest, an almost neutral psychological platform in which Seth’s outline began to emerge.

[...] That statement is one of the cornerstones of Seth’s material, stated almost from the beginning of our sessions and emphasized throughout his books. In Mass Events, though, Seth goes further, maintaining that our private impulses are meant to provide the impetus for the development of our own abilities in a way that will also contribute to the best interests of the species and the natural world as well. [...] Seth maintains that we can’t trust ourselves while distrusting our impulses at the same time. [...] What Seth is really saying here is that our impulses are meant to help us create our own realities on a personal basis in a way that will enhance both our private lives and our civilizations.

While Seth was dictating The Individual and the Nature of Mass Events, for example, the Three Mile Island nuclear accident occurred; and had the affair turned into a disaster, our Chemung County would have been used to house refugees. Many spectacular national events have happened, of course, since our first sessions took place late in 1963, but Seth seldom mentioned such issues, and then only in answer to our own questions. [...] For that reason he examines the public arena, and devotes a good deal of material to Three Mile Island and to the Jonestown mass suicides as well. Both situations occurred as Seth was dictating this book, and while they are contemporary, both cases are classic in their implications.

While Seth was dictating Mass Events, for example, another of our cats (Billy) died. Seth was discussing the Three Mile Island accident, but he left off book dictation for a while because we felt so badly, and gave us some excellent material on animal consciousness before and after death — because “tragedies” come in all shapes and sizes, and the most domestic events of our days offer Seth opportunities to comment on life itself.

(Much of tonight’s private material is the kind that eventually appears in Jane’s “own” works, such as Adventures, or is translated in her poetry. [...] “Ruburt,” Seth commented, “is just beginning his own dream endeavors, which could not seriously start until he learned to have faith in his own being.” [Appendix 11 contains excerpts from The Wonderworks, the paper Jane wrote almost two weeks ago on Seth, dreams, and the creation of our reality. In my notes for The Wonderworks I described her own recent dream series — which still continues, by the way.] And: “In our case,” Seth said a bit later, “Ruburt almost ‘becomes’ the material he receives from me. If certain other beneficial alterations occur, and further understanding on Ruburt’s part, we may be able to meet at other levels of consciousness — in the dream state, when he is not cooperating in the production of our book material.” For Jane has never met Seth, face to face, you might say, in a dream. [...]

(Nor is the biologist’s chaos the same thing as Seth’s “unpredictability.” As Seth tells us in the 681st session in Section 1: “Science likes to think that it deals with predictable action. [...] In connection with this, we suggest the reader study especially Seth’s material from 10:00 to 10:36 in the 681st session.)

4. Chapters 9 and 10 in Seth Speaks contain much information on dreams. For material on the classes held at after-death training centers, see in particular the 537th session in Chapter 9. While out of body during the sleep state, some people from our reality, Jane among them, assist those who have just died in adjusting to their various new environments. And from Seth in the 536th session: “… I had spent many lifetimes acting as [such] a guide under the tutorship of another in my daily sleep states.”

(1. At the end of the paragraph of material begun at 10:35, where Seth touched upon the “withinness of consciousness”: I thought his data there echoed Jane’s own, as she recorded it in The Wonderworks.

[...] Seth ‘never promised us a rose garden,’ and we have our good days and our bad days as we encounter life’s daily challenges, joys, adventures, and misadventures. In this large group of sessions, Seth addressed himself to several of our individual problems: Rob’s occasional bouts of indisposition when he felt ‘under the weather’ generally, or was bothered by a variety of minor but annoying symptoms; and my own long-standing troubles with severe stiffness. If Seth didn’t give us a rose garden, he certainly did — and does — try to tell us where the weeds come from! This personal material did help give us a much larger perspective on our various challenges, and we’ve made some inroads in overcoming them. Like anyone else, we have to put Seth’s material to use for ourselves. The thing is, often we’re so busy getting the material and preparing it for publication that we don’t have the time to really study it as our readers do. Perhaps Seth was trying to compensate for that in those private sessions, by taking time out from dictation to help us put the material to greater personal use.”

(“In an important fashion those private sessions parallel his material for Mass Events … material that did make us view the world and current events quite differently than we had earlier. [...] Some of those sessions were devoted to our private beliefs, but usually Seth put such beliefs into the larger social context. [...] Since then, we’ve voiced our hopes often that Seth will go into the entire Jonestown affair in Mass Events; he can’t but help be aware of our wishes! So interspersed in all of that private material are some excellent — and lively — discussions of events current in the world at that time, as well as discourses on connections between creativity and Framework 2, and topics as diverse as psychotic behavior and early civilizations. It was as though Seth were trying to help us break up old associations for once and for all. [...]

[...] During it Seth remarked that he’d “begin book sessions again next Wednesday,” but that didn’t quite work out; he still had a few more nonbook sessions to go. Jane has been looking over his material on Mass Events every so often lately, though, with the idea of going back to work on it. And then, on the very night when she told me that she thought Seth would resume book dictation, Sue Watkins called with news that it was all official now: Today she’d signed her contract with Prentice-Hall for the publication of Conversations With Seth.)

(“Looking over those nine-and-a-half months of sessions now, it’s fairly obvious what Seth was up to. He’d initially given us the material on Frameworks 1 and 2 in private sessions not long after starting Mass Events, as Rob explained in his notes for Session 814. Yet even though Seth also discussed those psychic frameworks to some degree in a dozen sessions for the book, still he finally took that break in dictation to ‘re-educate’ us, looking at our own previous beliefs and those of the world at large in the light of Frameworks 1 and 2.

(Bill and Peggy agreed that Seth’s material on his parents seems to fit them psychologically, although some of the information given concerning Bill’s subconscious feelings toward his father was a surprise to Bill. At one point Seth asked Bill to not say so much when he answered a question, because this led Ruburt to start to actively and consciously consider the material and to make his own interpretations, which could be distorted. Seth also asked Bill not to tell us any more about his family relationships; presumably so that more material Seth came through with in future sessions could be checked with Bill’s knowledge, as in the blue dress and the bookkeeping incidents.

(Right after the session began, Seth showed how Jane’s personal subconscious memories had, during the sitting with the Gallaghers, on August 20, distorted the material we received. [...] Seth mentioned that Jane’s own memories of the shredded-wheat incident should have told her what had happened. [...] Much, Seth said, Jane had picked up telepathically from Bill. [...]

(Seth said he had unfortunately been involved with some other groups on our plane, in seance gatherings. [...] At the same time Seth stated he was not a spirit, although if he materialized in the middle of the floor we would pay more attention and not take him for granted.

[...] The material on the construction of matter was gone over. Seth talked a good deal on the cooperation of all living things in maintaining our universe, and of how it’s so very wrong for civilized human beings to kill. [...]

(After the end of break at 11:17, Seth came through with a fairly long block of material on another matter. He closed out the session at 11:43 P.M. with this line about the questions I had waiting for him: “I bid you a fond good evening — and I know when your material will fit.” [...]

[...] I reminded Jane of the two questions I’d put off from Monday’s abbreviated session, but Seth made only a brief reference to them at the end of tonight’s material.)

[...] I anticipated hearing what Seth would say about some of the probable paths since taken by the photograph’s three subjects. I’ve had the question in mind ever since Seth discussed separate, childhood snapshots of Jane and me in the same terms during the first session for “Unknown” Reality. [...] In that session, Seth told us that the 12 year old Jane in the photo under discussion was to become probable to the one I eventually met and married.] Beside whatever Seth could tell us about her parents, I was curious to know whether the Jane who was shown at the age of 3 might be — or was destined to become — another probable Jane.⁶)

1. Seth’s evocative material on dream images reminded me of an equally evocative poem about the dreaming self that Jane wrote in 1965, a year and a half or so after the sessions began. [...]

Every so often Jane hears from a female reader who wants to know why Seth often uses the male gender in his books, especially in passages like those in tonight’s 696th session. A little reflection will show that in spite of the “sexist” implications it would be quite difficult to present such material in other ways, so common is the use of “man,” “he,” “his,” and “him.” [...] We also don’t want to become involved with rewriting Seth’s material: We’re sure that when he produces passages cast in the male gender, his intentions are anything but prejudiced in favor of that sex.

[...] When Seth came through again in a few minutes he said, humorously: “Tell Ruburt I said ‘Happy Birthday’” — then gave a page of material for Jane on another subject. [...]

2. Seth talked very briefly about such blueprints in Chapter 20 of Personal Reality — see the 672nd session after the end of break at 10:28. He concluded his material by stating: “A system of checks and balances exists, however, so that in certain dreams you are made aware of these blueprints. [...]

3. Seth’s material here reminded me of what Jane had told me last week about her own objectified perception of information; see her quoted notes prefacing the 694th session for May 1.

(At first John said Seth’s material meant little or nothing to him. This is just about a standard first reaction from witnesses for whom Seth has given such material; offhand Jane and I can think of no one who has reacted differently. [...] As usual I read Seth’s data back to John, and as he has in past sessions he then began to make connections. See the 135th, 166th, 190th, 199th, 200th, and 204th sessions for material re. [...] A fair amount of the material is telepathic and/or clairvoyant, especially that of the 204th session. Seth expands on this last session in the 205th and 206th sessions, and deals with John’s experience in hearing Seth speak to him when he was alone.

(Just before first break Seth had mentioned a 12th St. in connection with John Bradley. [...] Jane said she received this bit of data quite strongly while giving Seth’s other material, and that at first she wasn’t going to give voice to it because she wasn’t sure if it was from Seth or herself. [...]

(John was interested in whether Seth could add anything to the long range material he has given concerning Searle Drug over the past year and a half. This material is somewhat long and complicated, and is covered in the sessions John has witnessed: 37, 54, 63, 70, 95, 135, 166, 190, 204. [...]

(Seth said a little on the above ideas when he began to give us the material on the electrical field and on moment points, several months ago. [...]

“As I was getting ready for bed after our last Seth session, I suddenly wondered about Atlantis. Then from Seth, mentally, I thought, I got the information that Atlantis, as it’s come down to us in myth and story, was actually a composite of three civilizations. [...] Next I got that Plato picked up the Atlantis material himself, psychically — he didn’t get it the way he said he did. I never ask Seth about Atlantis; I’m afraid the cultish ideas connected with it turned me off long ago.”

(A note added later: Seth himself had some things to say about Atlantis in the 742nd session for Section 6; the session also contains excerpts from the Atlantis material he delivered a month or so after finishing Volume 2 of “Unknown” Reality. Without giving away any “secrets,” I can write that on both occasions Seth discussed the subject in conjunction with his postulates about ideals, myths, religion, probabilities, and the simultaneous nature of time.)

[...] We were left thinking that the general tone of Seth’s material early in the session, especially in his references to such ideas as “historical sequences” and “alternate realities,” might have served as a trigger.

1. Seth is right, of course. [...] My stomach has been knotting up because I’m stewing over the reactions of those in charge at Prentice-Hall to Seth’s material in Mass Events about medical matters.

(We laughed again when we considered that Seth had tempered some of his material for Mass Events. [...]

(See the session for September 22 for our own ideas and feelings, and more of Seth’s material, on the medical/disclaimer situation with Prentice-Hall.)

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

[...] A scientist there wondered if Seth could describe him or one of his associates. Jane and I both felt that Seth would not comply, at least at this time. We based this opinion on material already received.

[...] By 8:45 she said she had no idea of Seth’s material for tonight, and that this made her nervous. [...]

[...] This material is included here because it is dealt with briefly by Seth in the following session, the 39th.

(We were back home by 8 PM; at 8:15 Jane lay down for half an hour, in preparation for the session, while I prepared papers for the notes I would be taking, and read over some previous material from Seth.

2. Just for my own study, I later inserted “[almost]” in Seth’s sentence because I hadn’t been quick enough to ask him to elaborate upon “the end result of an infinite series of sequences” when Jane delivered his material for him. After the session I began to wonder if Seth hadn’t contradicted himself by saying there could be an end result of something infinite. [...] Seth had indicated in the preceding paragraph of the session that such faltering of the reasoning abilities may occur. [...]

That note makes a handy reference for related concepts, for in it I also briefly discussed subatomic “particles”; the components of atoms; molecules; supposed faster-than-light particles (tachyons); Seth’s CU’s, or units of consciousness; his assertion that consciousness can travel faster than light in out-of-body states; Jane’s scientific vocabulary; and Einstein’s special theory of relativity. In addition, I gave references to other material, including some by Seth, on several of those topics.

Jane was so much at ease tonight that she thought of skipping the session, but she decided to try for it because she’d picked up material on it from Seth today, and made a few notes. [...]

[...] Jane’s delivery for Seth had become quite fast by break time. “Wow,” she exclaimed as she put on her glasses, “I was so far out of it, and the material got so complicated, that I didn’t know what was going on. [...]

(We discussed the general implications of Seth’s material on my mother — that she was not only “alive” after her “death,” but that a portion of her was focused upon Jane and me. Jane had allowed Seth to talk about the whole situation in a more personal way than she usually does; the result is that we already have more data on Stella Butts than on the earlier deaths of Jane’s own parents [in 1971 and 1972], for instance.⁴ We knew that Seth wouldn’t continue describing my mother and her present reality indefinitely; such a study could easily grow into a book by itself. In addition, Jane holds deeply felt convictions about giving material on survival personalities; the information in Appendix 10 has a bearing here. I also think that Seth will be able to say more on the beliefs behind her feelings as this book progresses.

[...] But that’s funny: I don’t think of Seth being over there — just the information. It’s as though I wait for the material to fall into a slot; then Seth, who’s here” — she touched her belly — “deals with it.”

[...] When Seth comes through he’s at the same level the material’s at, and he — or I — can then pull it in … It’s as though there’s a store of information there, but I have to go through a door of consciousness to reach it.”

(“Good evening, Seth.”)

(Both of us have been curious as to how the material in Monday night’s session fits in with that on the Sinful Self, which Jane still hasn’t typed except for the first five pages. I’m somewhat handicapped because I don’t have the Sinful Self material to compare anything to, but I’m sure there are many connections between the two. I’d planned to write down some questions for tonight, based on Monday’s session, but had so many actually that I decided to let that project go, trusting that Seth will cover them in his own way.

(This afternoon while I was out doing errands, Jane had a rather strong if not lengthy experience that seemed to encompass an emotional understanding of Seth’s material in the last session [for Monday]. [...]

(One of the questions concerned Seth’s material on page 218 of the last session, when he referred to the feeling that Jane and I have, that we had “an even more unfair advantage” without children—this, as he’d stated earlier, on top of our already being set apart from others because of our creative gifts. [...]

[...] Your notes were a way of presenting the material. The symptoms were a way of presenting the material. [...] This will be a relatively brief session, and again other psychological events connect the session material with your private experience as you make certain translations that are necessary quite for yourselves. [...]

(See the 833rd session for the proper connections with some of Seth’s material here. His references to my own material being valid concerned my insights that many of the heads I paint represent my own psychic searches, or efforts, to obtain understanding of the dimensions of the psyche through reincarnation and counterpart depictions of those various personalities.)

(The following material is from the 833rd session. [...]

Your own material is excellent and valid. [...]

That is what I meant when I said the material was valid. [...]

(4. Seth also said that it would be “not practical” and “boring” for him to relive his life as a pope, then added: “In those terms, many people do choose to reexperience what you would think of as a past existence in order to change it as they go along.” [...] Again in Seth Speaks, see Seth’s material at 10:07 in the 539th session for Chapter 10: “You may perfect [that past life], in other words, but you cannot again enter into that frame of reference as a completely participating consciousness — following — say, the historic trends of the time, joining into the mass-hallucinated existence that resulted from the applied consciousness of your self and your ‘contemporaries.’”

(Finally, as we waited for Seth to return, Jane said: “Now I am confused — I can get material on three different subjects….” [...] The other two were points 4 and 5, as listed in the notes preceding this session; since Jane became consciously aware of material on them just before the session began, she’d had no time in which to give it. [...] It didn’t take long: Out of those very interesting ideas he’d mentioned in class last night, Seth ended up discussing the one I’ve noted as point 5.

5. Point 5 at the start of this session contains my note that later I added to Appendix 18 a few of the comments Seth made in last night’s ESP class, concerning his connections with Jane. Seth obviously elaborated on that material here, but instead of quoting it in Appendix 18 also, I thought of letting the reader first come across it in this session; and so, to whatever tiny extent, this additional information now alters each reader’s present reality by changing his or her conception of that Jane-Ruburt-Seth relationship.

[...] Seth covered many interesting points, and [I can add later] Jane presents the entire session in slightly abbreviated form in Chapter 15 of Politics. I suggest the reader review that material at this time.

[...] We have now obtained a written detailed report on Peggy Gallagher’s trip to Washington, as compared to Seth’s material on Peggy in the last two sessions. Seth scored many hits—Jane’s best effort in these tests by far. The material will be incorporated in a very early session, along with the material on the Gallagher’s Puerto Rico vacation of last October. [...] She states that the material at the beginning of the Dr. Instream test data, on page 113, applies to a cocktail party she attended in Washington on Monday, December 6. Peggy states Seth’s description here of the cocktail party is quite correct, even to the fact that a woman was the main hostess, and that a man, her husband, was present with her. [...]

[...] If this information was misplaced in the earlier Gallagher material, then what accounts for it? It appeared in the Gallagher material before the envelope test was held, and of course Jane could not know what the envelope test object was beforehand, by ordinary means. Seth has stated that such terms as telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, etc., are of but relative usefulness; perhaps this instance is but an example of the ability of part of the mind to dissolve the time barrier.

(Seth dwelt on the taxicab symbol, and as he did so I found myself hoping that Peggy would notice it. We have wondered before about Seth making statements concerning something that might be in the presence of the subject for the test, only to have the subject fail to notice it. [...] Seth described a certain rowboat with initials and a symbol on its bow; but since Bill failed to notice rowboats in general, we were at a loss as to the accuracy of Seth’s information. Seth did insist that this particular boat had been in Bill’s close vicinity.

[...] If so it is an example of the “bleeding” of test material from one test to another during the same session. Seth has told us this is a possibility. [...]

[...] See Chapter 21 of Seth Speaks for more on the Christ entity. According to history, Christ was crucified, and the other two members of Seth’s Christ entity, John the Baptist and St. Paul, were beheaded. Seth hasn’t mentioned India before in connection with any of the three, so that information would be new. [...] As I told Jane after the session, Seth’s Christ material tonight reminded me of the idea of the Christ book, which Seth mentioned in Personal Reality.)

(Seth’s material here on the use of the will came about, I think, as a result of some older material I gave Jane to read this afternoon. [...]

I always have to couch my material for you personally, just ahead (emphatically) of where you are at any given time. Overall, however, the main thrust of the material of course has always been way ahead of where you are, practically speaking, at any given time.

[...] She thought Seth would discuss such relationships this evening.)

After she’d grappled with her reception of some long-sound material last night, Jane spoke a few words for Seth. It was then that we began to glimpse what we could call a “source” of the long material — for Jane told class that from our physical viewpoint “Seth’s true reality had sounded like a mountain” to her. [...] By making a strong effort she’d speeded up her reception of him so that he came through sounding like the familiar Seth. Thus she gained new insights into Seth and his home environment. And from that much larger, more encompassing reality, Seth could follow a consciousness in our camouflage world through all of its forms “within the flicker of an eye.”

Now for the unfortunate results I mentioned near the beginning of this note: Of the two cassette tape recorders that had been operated by class members last night, one malfunctioned throughout the evening, unknown to its owner, and so recorded no class material at all. The other recorder’s tape snapped just before Jane finally succeeded in consistently uniting Seth’s slow, or long, reality with the accelerated version we ordinarily hear. For a few minutes, then, she was able to speak for Seth about his home environment — but since the information wasn’t recorded I have nothing to quote here. [...] I don’t want to try reconstructing Seth from memory, but will note that his material took off from some of that in the 612th session (see Appendix 19).

[...] Now Jane came through with several pages of material for herself. Some of it was quite personal, but one part consisted of Seth’s response to an assessment she’d written after supper tonight, wherein she examined her progress since the inauguration of her psychic abilities late in 1963. Seth, here, adds to our understanding of Jane’s reactions to some of the challenges she took up 11 years ago. His material is also an extension of much that he gave in the 679th session for Volume 1 of “Unknown” Reality, when he discussed the early background of the probable Jane who chose to live in this physical reality, and how that Jane began to contend with her strongly mystical nature. [...]

[...] I made a verbatim record of her first encounter with slow, or long, sound in the 612th session for September 6, 1972, just about a year after she’d finished Seth Speaks. Since the material in that session wasn’t covered in Personal Reality or Adventures, we’re publishing most of it as an appendix for this volume.* Not only will it illuminate these notes; it will also link, if loosely, Seth’s reality, Seth Two, and some other “rapid” effects. [...]

[...] At the same time, she had a lot of material in mind from Seth—on the glass experience; a dream I’d had on August 1, in which I’d found her lying on the floor in the bathroom doorway; and a fairly strong earthquake that had struck south of San Francisco, California, this afternoon. Seth, she said somewhat wonderingly, planned to tie all of these episodes together. [...]

(From here on Seth’s material leads into more generalized information, so it’s presented as the 871st session. [...]

(The following material is from the 871st session.

(At about 3:30 PM last Thursday, Jane participated in a startling experience —one that we hoped Seth would at least mention this evening. [...]